This Sunday, Kirk Ferentz and the Iowa Hawkeyes made the drive east to hold an open practice in front of approximately 8,000 fans in West Des Moines.

This was a first for the Hawkeyes, and in all likelihood, had a lot to do with building up goodwill following a 4-8 season that saw the Iowa offense fall flat on its face.

There is still a lot of work to do, as Iowa is just over the midway point of spring practices. On the other hand, some new and old names have popped up as players to watch for in the upcoming Iowa spring game.

The following will look at the top five things that Hawkeyes fans learned following the open practice.

Unless otherwise noted, whenever Marc Morehouse is referenced, it is via this article on thegazette.com.

Defensive Ends Need a Lot of Work

True sophomore Drew Ott began spring as the starting strong-side defensive end, an area where Iowa needs a ton of improvement.

Last season, the Hawkeyes not only had a conference-worst 13 sacks, but also had their worst rush defense since 2000, allowing 4.11 yards per carry.

Unfortunately, while the defensive tackles seem to be making strides, the ends are still behind the curve.

According to Morehouse, in O-line vs. D-line drills, "right tackle Brett Van Sloten pancaked sophomore defensive end Drew Ott in on back-to-back plays." That is something you don't like to see, especially when the defense knows what's coming.

To be fair, Van Sloten is a fifth-year senior while Ott was playing eight-man football less than two years ago.

Meanwhile, Ott's top backups appear to be sophomore Riley McMinn and redshirt freshman Faith Ekakitie, the latter of whom came to Iowa with expectations of playing on the inside of the line.

And the Top Quarterback Is...

C.J. Beathard via Jim Slosiarek of KCRG

Redshirt freshman C.J. Beathard came into the practice with the hot hand.

There were offseason musings such as Randy Peterson of the Des Moines Register (link via blackheartgoldpants.com) and Jon Miller of Hawkeyenation.com predicting that Beathard would win the starting job.

Then, only a couple of days ago, the Big Ten Network's Gerry DiNardo took in an Iowa practice, and when asked who the best quarterback was, he responded,

As for the Running Back...

Canzeri was slotted to be the starting tailback in 2012, but missed the season with a late spring ACL tear.

However, he was cleared to play only six months after his injury (though he never did play)—an injury that usually takes nine months to a year to heal.

It would be easy to call Canzeri the hungriest player on the roster as the team headed into spring practices. In fact, new running backs coach Chris White said (via Hawkeyesports.com) that based on the way Canzeri was practicing, "I wouldn't even know if Jordan was injured."

The other, more experienced running backs—juniors Mark Weisman and Damon Bullock—will push hard for carries, but it is good to see the competition out there.